Read Book

Chapter 9: Watching the Watcher

Buddha said, “Still I pray, sir. You have certainly given birth to me. I came through you, that’s true, but you were only a vehicle. And just because somebody has come riding on a horse, it does not mean that the horse knows the rider. I have passed through the doors of your body, but that does not mean that you know me. In fact, twelve years ago, even I did not know who I was. Now I know! Look into my eyes. Please forget the past - be here now!”

But the father was incapable. With his old eyes, full of tears of anger and joy, he could not see what had happened to Buddha. “What nonsense is he talking about, that he has died and is reborn, that he is a totally different individuality? That he is no more a personality, that he is an individuality?”

In dictionaries, personality and individuality are synonyms. They are not synonymous in life. The personality is false, a pretension, a facade. Individuality is your truth.

Why do we want many, many people to give attention to us? Why do we hanker for this? To create personality. And the more personality you create around yourself, the less is the possibility of knowing your individuality.

And when Buddha went to see his wife, she was even angrier. She asked only one question, a very significant one. She said, “I have only one question to ask you. I have waited for all these years, and I have only one question. The question is simple, but be honest.” She still thinks that Buddha can be dishonest! “Be honest, be true, and just tell me one thing. Whatever you have attained in the forest, was it impossible to attain it here in the palace? Is God only in the forest and not here in the marketplace?”

Her question is of tremendous significance. Buddha said, “Yes, the truth is as much here as it is there. But it would have been very difficult for me to know it here, because I was lost in a personality - the personality of the prince, the personality of a husband, the personality of a father, the personality of a son. The personality was too much. I never left the palace really, I was only leaving my personality behind so that there would be nobody to remind me who I was, and I could answer the question ‘Who am I?’ on my own. I wanted to encounter myself. I was not interested in anybody else’s answers.”

But everybody else is interested in others’ answers. How much you love it when somebody says, “You are so beautiful.”

Sarvesh was saying to Mukta, “I feel a little lost.” Naturally! He is one of the best ventriloquists the world knows; he has lived the life of a showman - always on the stage, lights flooding him from everywhere, thousands of people absolutely alert, watching what he is doing with great appreciation. He has talent, genius, and he has lived flooded with others’ attentions.

Now naturally in this commune nobody comes to say to him, “Sarvesh, you are great. Sarvesh you are this, you are that.” He must be feeling a little bit lost. That is a problem for people who are public figures, it is very difficult for them to drop their personality.